Unit I

Background of Greece and its Peoples

1

2

Unit I Background of Greece and its Peoples

Lesson: Historical Overview Common Core Standards: RH 1 Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text. Key Questions/Issues Addressed:

• How did the topography and the geographical location of Greece influence its development?

• How did colonization and the migration of peoples impact on the development of the Greek culture and influence its historical development?

• What is the basis for the reference to Greece as the “cradle of Western civilization”? • How did the Jews integrate into life in Greece and into the community of peoples that

comprised the Greek population? Lesson Goals/Objectives:

• Students will be able to describe a brief history of Greece and its civilization. • Students will be able to relate an overview of the history of Jews in ancient and medieval

Greece. Key Terms:

• Homer: In the Western classical tradition, Homer is the author of The Iliad and the Odyssey and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature and the culture of all Hellenes.

• Polis: Ancient Greek city-state. The polis centered on one town, usually walled, but included the surrounding countryside. The town contained a citadel on raised ground (acropolis) and a marketplace (agora). Ideally, the polis was a corporation of citizens who all participated in its government, religious cults, defense, and economic welfare and who obeyed its sacred and customary laws.

• Oath of Alexander: Alexander the Great’s oath given at Opis in Babylon in 324 BCE at a banquet before 9,000 Greek and Asian officers conveying a message of universal humanity.

• Septuagint: A 3rd century BCE translation of the Hebrew Bible and additional Jewish texts into Koine Greek. It incorporates the oldest of several ancient translations of what are now the Christian Old Testament, Biblical apocrypha and Deuterocannical books.

• Romaniotes: Jewish populations who have lived in the territory of today's Greece and neighboring areas with large Greek populations for more than 2,000 years. Their languages were Yevanic, a Greek dialect, and Greek.

• Ladino: Also known as Judaeo-Spanish, is a Romance language derived from Old Spanish. As a Jewish language, it is influenced heavily by Hebrew and Aramaic but also Arabic, Turkish and Greek and other languages where Sephardic exiles settled around the world, primarily throughout the Ottoman Empire.

3

• Lingua franca: A language or a mix of languages used among peoples of different native languages as a means of communicating; a language widely used among people who speak different native languages for the purpose of communicating.

• Hellene: The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes, are an ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and other regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world.

Materials Needed:

• Background information on Greece and its people • Maps of Greece and surrounding area • Access to Internet for sources listed • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_mythology • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Jews#cite_ref-SephardicStudies1_0-1 • http://www.greekembassy.org/embassy/Content/en/Article.aspx?office=1&folder=6&article=

24875 Maps:

• http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/europe/ciamaps/gr.htm • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Greek_Colonization.png • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ArchaicGr.jpg • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MacedonEmpire.jpg

Background Information: Greece, known to its inhabitants as Ellada in Modern Greek and Hellas, in ancient Greek, is a country in southeastern Europe. Athens is the capital and the largest city in the country with the population approximately 10 million.

At the crossroads of three continents, Greece is a gateway to Asia, Africa and Europe. Greece has land borders with Albania, the Former Yugoslavia Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Bulgaria (to the north) and Turkey (to the east). The Aegean Sea lies to the east of mainland Greece, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has a vast number of islands (approximately 1,400), including Crete, the Dodecanese, the Cyclades and the Ionian Islands, among others. Eighty percent of Greece consists of mountains, of which Mount Olympus is the highest at 2,917 m (9,570 ft).

`

http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/europe/ciamaps/gr.htm

4

Brief History of Greece:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Parthenon.JPG

Ancient Greece is considered the cradle of Western civilization. It is the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, the Olympic Games, Western literature and historiography, political science, major scientific and mathematical principles, and Western drama, including both tragedy and comedy. Not only did its democratic ideals inspire the founding fathers of America to draft the U.S. Constitution, but ancient Greece also encouraged other countries around the world to follow its democratic system of government as well. Greece’s history stretches back over 4,000 years to a time when the people who inhabited the island of Crete developed the notable Minoan Civilization. The people of the mainland, called Hellenes, were influenced by the Minoan Civilization and further developed it. The Mycenaean Greeks were part of the Indo-European family of peoples who spread from their original location in central Europe into southern and Western Europe, India and Iran. This group entered the territory of Greece from the north around 1900 BCE and over time these people gained control of the Greek mainland and developed its civilization. By 1100 BCE, the Mycenaean culture was coming to an end and it is speculated that the collapse was due to invasion and migration from the north by another Greek speaking people called the Dorians. The Dorians established themselves in southwestern Greek as well as on some of the southern Aegean islands. The period of 1100 to 750 BCE was a period of migrations. Other Greek migrations included the Aeolian Greeks who were located in the north and central regions, Lesbos and the adjacent territory of the mainland as well as the Ionians who settled in Attica (Athens) and Asia Minor. The Greeks also organized expeditions which explored the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, reaching as far as the Caucasus Mountains (modern Georgia and Russia). Greek settlements were founded throughout the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, and the coast of North Africa. Greek colonies varied in purpose and organization. Some were trading posts or centers for the transport of goods to Greece. Most were larger settlements which included good agricultural land, such as colonies in southern Italy and Sicily called by the Romans as “Magna Graceia” (Great Greece). Colonization proved a blessing in varied ways: it provided outlets for surplus population and adventurous spirits; and safety valves against agrarian discontent; it established foreign markets for domestic products and strategic depots for the import of food and minerals. In the end, it created a commercial empire whose thriving interchange of goods, arts, methods, and thoughts made possible the complex culture of Greece.

5

The Greek world in the mid 6th century BCE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Greek_Colonization.png

One of the most significant expeditions, the siege of Troy, was written by Homer in the first great European literary work, The Iliad and the Odyssey. The origins of The Iliad and the Odyssey, the first great epics of early Greece, are found in the oral traditions of reciting poems which recounted the deeds of the heroes of the Mycenaean age. Early in the 8th century BCE, Homer made use of these oral traditions to compose the Iliad, his epic of the Trojan War which recounts when Troy (known as Ilion) was attacked by four Mycenaean cities, Argos, Asine, Mycenae and Sparta. The Greeks regarded the Iliad and Odyssey as authentic history and these masterpieces gave to the Greeks an ideal past with a legendary age of heroes to be used as standard texts for the education of generations of Greeks. Throughout the Classical Period (5th century BCE), Greece consisted of poleis or city-states, with Athens and Sparta among the largest. In the most basic sense, a polis could be defined as a small but autonomous political unit in which all major political, social, and religious activities were carried out. A fierce spirit of independence and devotion to freedom was at the core of the Greeks. These traits encouraged the Greeks to oppose surpression and enabled them to defeat the Persians in battles in Marathon, Thermopylae, Salamis, and Plataea. These cultural characteristics define the Greek people and influenced the course of history.

Greece in the Archaic Age (750-490 BCE)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ArchaicGr.jpg

In the second half of the 4th century BCE, the Greek city-states fell to Macedon, another Hellenic kingdom in the north of Greece, led by Philip II. His son, Alexander the Great would lead the Greeks and would conquer most of the then known world. Alexander’s conquest of the Persian Empire opened the door to the spread of Greek culture and Hellenism throughout the

6

Near East. Greek settlers poured into the lands of the ancient Near East as bureaucrats, traders, soldiers and scholars. Alexander’s triumph blended together the achievements of the eastern world with the cultural outlook and attitudes of the Greeks.

Empire of Alexander the Great http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MacedonEmpire.jpg

Many historians have proposed that Alexander believed in an ideal of universal humanity. One such indication is the oath he gave at Opis in 324 BCE at a banquet before 9,000 Greek and Asian officers.

It is my wish, now that wars are coming to an end, that you should all be happy in peace. From now on, let all mortals live as one people, in fellowship, for the good of all. See the whole world as your homeland, with laws common to all, where the best will govern regardless of their race. Unlike the narrow minded, I make no distinction between Greeks and Barbarians. The origin of citizens, or the race into which they were born, is of no concern to me. I have only one criterion by which to distinguish their virtue. For me any good foreigner is a Greek and any bad Greek is worse than a barbarian. If disputes ever occur among you, you will not resort to weapons but will solve them in peace. If need be, I shall arbitrate between you. See God not as an autocratic despot, but as the common father of all and thus your conduct will be like the lives of brothers within the same family. I on my part, see you all as equal, whether you are white or dark-skinned. And I should like you not simply to be subjects of my Commonwealth, but members of it, partners of it. To the best of my ability, I shall strive to do what I have promised. Keep as a symbol of love this oath which we have taken tonight with our libations.

7

This oath conveys a message that Alexander's purpose was not to conquer nations or to acquire riches, or even to satisfy rivalrous passions between nations, but to unite all people with the bonds of peace, amalgamation, understanding and mutual respect. Upon Alexander’s death, his generals engaged in a struggle for power and ultimately Alexander’s empire was divided into four Hellenistic kingdoms: Macedonia under the Antigonid dynasty, Syria and the East under the Seleucids, the Attalid kingdom of Pergamum and Egypt under the Ptolemies. The Hellenistic Civilization represents the zenith of Greek influence in the ancient world from 323 BCE to about 146 BCE. The Hellenistic civilization represents a fusion of the Ancient Greek world with that of the Near East, Middle East and Southwest Asia. The Hellenistic period was characterized by a new wave of Greek colonization which established Greek cities and kingdoms in Asia and Africa. This mixture of Greek-speakers created the need for a common dialect, known as Hellenistic Greek, which became the lingua franca through the Hellenistic world. One vivid demonstration of Hellenistic Greek as the lingua franca is seen in the Septuagint. The Septuagint or the "Greek Old Testament" is a translation of the Hebrew Bible and additional Jewish texts into Koine Greek. It incorporates the oldest of several ancient translations of what are now the Christian Old Testament, Biblical apocrypha and Deuterocannical books. Some early pre-Christian Jewish versions of the Septuagint were held in great respect in ancient times. Philo, the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, and Josephus, the 1st-century Romano-Jewish historian, also ascribed divine inspiration to the Jewish translators.

In 146 BCE Greece fell to the Romans and in 330 A.D. Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire to Constantinople, setting the foundations of the Byzantine Empire. Byzantium soon became profoundly Greek, as it transformed the heritage of ancient Greece into a vehicle for the new Christian civilization which slowly spread to Western Europe. As a historical religion, Christianity was born in Hellenistic Judaism and spread in the Greek world of late antiquity. The Christian scriptures were written entirely in Greek and Greek cities such as Antioch, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessaloniki and Corinth were the first to receive Christianity. The early Church was implanted in the Greek speaking world and expressed itself in the Greek language for many centuries.

The Byzantine Empire fell to the Ottomans in 1453 and the Greeks remained under Ottoman Empire control for nearly 400 years. During that long period, Greece’s language, traditions, culture and national consciousness defied extinction.

On March 25, 1821, the Greeks revolted against the Ottomans, and by 1828 had regained their independence. As the new state comprised only a tiny fraction of the country, Greeks struggled for the liberation of all the lands they inhabited. In 1864, the Ionian Islands were ceded to Greece; in 1881 parts of Epirus and Thessaly. Crete, the islands of the Eastern Aegean and Macedonia were added in 1913, and Western Thrace in 1919. After World War II, the Dodecanese islands were also returned to Greece. During World War II, Greece fought memorably against Fascism and Nazism alongside the Allies. Greece has been a member of NATO since 1952 and of the European Union since 1981.

Brief History of Jews in Greece: Greek Jews played an important role in the early development of Christianity, and became a source of education and commerce for the Byzantine Empire and throughout the period of Ottoman Greece.

8

Jews have lived in Greece since ancient times and there have been organized Jewish communities in Greece for more than two thousand years. Since the Diaspora, large numbers of Jews did not live in Judea. There was a large population in Egypt, particularly Alexandria, as well as Jewish settlements throughout the cities of Asia Minor, Syria and Greece. In each city, Jews generally set up a synagogue and formed private association for worship as other foreigners did. But some city authorities also allowed the Jews to form a politeuma or political corporation that gave them greater rights than other resident aliens. Most importantly, they gained the privilege to live by their own laws and their own judicial system. Jews have lived in Greece possibly since the Babylonian exile. The oldest Jewish group that has inhabited Greece is the Romaniotes. The Romaniotes are a Jewish population who have lived in the territory of today's Greece for more than 2,000 years. Their historic language was Yevanic, a dialect of the Greek language. Large communities were located in Ioannina, Thebes, Chalcis, Corfu, Arta, and Corinth and on the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Rhodes and Cyprus, among others. A Romaniote oral tradition tells that the first Jews arrived in Ioannina shortly after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE. The earliest reference to a Greek Jew is an inscription dated c. 300-250 BCE, found in Oropos, a small coastal town between Athens and Boeotia, which refers to "Moschos, son of Moschion the Jew." Another reference is in the 2nd century BCE Hyrcanus, wherein a leader in the Jewish community of Athens, was honored by the raising of a statue in the agora (marketplace). In addition, according to Josephus (Contra Apionem, I, 176-183), a mention of a Hellenized Jew by a Greek writer was to be found in the work "De Somno" (nonextant) by the Greek historian Clearchus of Soli. Here Clearchus describes the meeting between Aristotle and a Jew in Asia Minor, who was fluent in Greek language and thought:

"'Well', said Aristotle, [...] 'the man was a Jew of Coele Syria (modern Lebanon). […] Now this man, who entertained a large circle of friends and was on his way from the interior to the coast, not only spoke Greek but had the soul of a Greek. During my stay in Asia, he visited the same places as I did, and came to converse with me and some other scholars, to test our learning. But as one who had been intimate with many cultivated persons, it was rather he who imparted to us something of his own.'"

Archaeologists have also discovered ancient synagogues in Greece, including the Synagogue in the Agora of Athens and the Delos Synagogue, dating to the 2nd century BCE. In the 12th century, Benjamin of Tudela recorded details about communities of Jews in Corfu, Arta, Aphilon, Patras, Corinth, Thebes, Chalkis, Thessaloniki, and Drama. The largest community he found in Greece was in Thebes, where approximately 2000 Jews lived. At the time, they were known as "Romaniotes". Moses-Symeon Pesach, Chief Rabbi of the Romaniote Greek Jewish community of Larisa in 1939. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rabbi_Romaniote_Greek_Jew.JPG

9

In addition to the Romaniotes, Greece was also the home of a historical center of Sephardic life with its center, the city of Thessaloniki, called the "Mother of Israel." It was in 1492, with the conquest of Muslim Granada, that Spain took the drastic step of expelling all professed Jews from Spain. Waves of Sephardic Jews were expelled with many settling in Ottoman-ruled Greece. It is estimated that 150,000 out of 200,000 Jews fled Spain. Attracted by Ottoman Sultan Bayezid’s promises of economic concessions and political protection, Spanish speaking Jews arrived in droves. Some went on to Istanbul, Sarajevo and Alexandria but the largest colony took shape in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. Sultan Bayezid II ridiculed the conduct of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in expelling a class of people so useful to their subjects. "You venture to call Ferdinand a wise ruler," he said to his courtiers — "he who has impoverished his own country and enriched mine!" The Sephardic community also spoke a separate language, Ladino, also known as Judeo-Espaniol. Thessaloniki had one of the largest Jewish communities in the world and a solid rabbinical tradition. The Greek Sephardim community "was a unique blend of Ottoman, Balkan and Hispanic influences", well known for its level of education. According to the Jewish Virtual Library:

Greece became a haven of religious tolerance for Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition and other persecution in Europe. The Ottomans welcomed the Jews because they improved the economy. Jews occupied administrative posts and played an important role in intellectual and commercial life throughout the empire. These immigrants established the city's first printing press, and the city became known as a centre for commerce and learning. The exile of other Jewish communities swelled the city's Jewish population, until Jews were the majority population in 1519.

By the middle of the 19th century, the Sephardic population of Thessaloniki had risen to between 25,000 and 30,000 members. The end of the century saw great improvements, as the mercantile leadership of the Sephardic community took advantage of new trade opportunities with the rest of Europe. As a result of the Jewish influence on the city, many non-Jewish inhabitants of Thessaloniki spoke Judeo Espaniol, and the city virtually shut down on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath, giving it the name of 'Little Jerusalem". Many sea-travellers reaching the port of Thessaloniki humorously recalled that Thessaloniki was a city where people worked only four days while resting three consecutive days. This was due to the three major religions the population adhered to and their respective resting days: Friday for Muslims, Saturday for Jews and Sunday for Christians. Sources:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_mythology • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Jews#cite_ref-SephardicStudies1_0-1 • http://www.greekembassy.org/embassy/Content/en/Article.aspx?office=1&folder=6&article=

24875 • Crawford, Michael, Archaic and Classical Greece, (1994). • Durant, Will, The Life of Greece, (1966). • Encyclopedia of Ancient Myths and Culture, (2003). • Finley, M.I., Early Greece: The Bronze and Archaic Ages, (1981). • Glenny, Misha, The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, (2001). • Homer, The Iliad, (translated by W.H.D Rouse). • Homer, The Odyssey, (translated by W.H.D. Rouse).

10

• Lerner, Robert, Western Civilizations: Their History and Their Culture, (1993). • Mazower, Mark, Salonica: City of Ghosts, Christians, Muslims and Jews 1430-1950

(2006). • Murray, Oswyn, Early Greece, (1980). • Seton-Williams, M.V., Greek Legends and Stories, (1993). • Spielvogel, Jackson, Western Civilization, Volume I: To 1715 (Second Edition 1994). • The Greeks: The Triumphant Journey (2002)

Maps:

• http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/europe/ciamaps/gr.htm • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Greek_Colonization.png • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ArchaicGr.jpg • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MacedonEmpire.jpg

Instructional Activities/Procedures: The students should be engaged in class discussions involving the following topics and/or the teacher may choose to assign some of the topics as research/homework essays. 1. Discuss colonization and migration among the Greeks in the pre-classical period and during

the Hellenistic era. Discuss purposes and reasons for migration, i.e. economic and non-economic motivations.

2. Study the various maps and identify key features of the physical Greek world, i.e. bodies of water, land features, coastlines, islands, mountain valleys, etc.

3. Analyze how and why geography influenced the patterns of migration of peoples in the Greek world, the development of a commercial empire, and a complex culture.

4. Discuss Hellenistic civilization and the ideal of universal humanity. Read Oath of Alexander and discuss its meaning. Identify and explain how Alexander’s words and ideas stress the concept of the people as members of one family. Do Alexander’s words sound more like the words of a powerful warrior or of a confirmed pacifist? Explain your response.

5. Discuss the interrelationship between the Hellenistic civilization and Judaism. Such areas may include Greek as the lingua franca, the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) and the spread of Christianity to the Greek world.

6. Discuss the expulsion of Jews from Spain. Discussion should address religious and cultural intolerance and prejudice. Relate to student at personal level where one would have to immediately move with no or little possessions to a foreign land with a different language, customs and people. Explain why many of the Jews forced to flee from Spain went to Greece to settle and to start a new life.

7. Analyze the ways that the Jews adapted to their home in Greece and the impact the Jews had upon the society and the economy of Greece.

11

Evidence of Understanding: 1. Write a short essay describing how the topography and geographical location of Greece

influenced its historical development as a people and a nation. 2. Make a chart showing the contributions of ancient Greece and the empire of Alexander to

the development of Western civilization. Categories should include arts and literature, political, economic, military, language, religion, philosophy.

3. Develop a timeline showing the appearance of the Jews in Greece (and the reasons for that appearance) and the development, contributions and impact of the Jews to their Greek world.

Extension Activities: 1. Research the history of Sephardic Jews in Thessaloniki, Greece. Include information on the

language(s) spoken, the cultural and economic as well as religious life of the Sephardic community, the group’s influences on the city, and its acceptance into the life of Thessaloniki.

2. Research information about the Septuagint and its history as a religious document, a cultural document, and historical document.